Archive for the ‘computers’ Category

The image above is a screencap of the program Mac Defender. The program runs a “scan” of Mac computers, then tell users that–surprise!–their Mac is crawling with malware. that’s quite alright though, because if the user just enters their credit card info, the registered version of Mac Defender will save the day, ridding the Mac of those dastardly viruses.

Of course, Mac Defender’s not a real anti-virus program. It’s an example of rogue security software, malicious programs that claim to be protecting computers, all the way trying to bilk users out of credit card info, and in some cases hijacking their browsers and making the computers generally unusable.

As much as we rely on computers in our daily lives, the public is pretty clueless about any computer bigger than the modern desktop. Case in point: mainframes. Mainframe is one of those terms that pops up all the time in sci fi or hacker movies. It sounds cool, and more importantly, it’s esoteric, so it’s safe to use it as a plot device. But most people have no clue what a mainframe is, or what it does. We at TS are going to do an in depth guide to the machines affectionately known as “Big Iron”.